Presidential Signing Statements

Presidential Signing Statements are in the news again. In September, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) wrote a report that asserts that President Bush's continued and frequent use of Presidential Signing Statements that say that the President has the right to interpret as he sees fit the laws passed by Congress are part of an ongoing effort to make the executive branch more powerful than the legislative branch of the U.S. government. An example that supports this claim can be found in the President's Statement on H.R. 5441, the "Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007", where the signing statement says such things as "The executive branch shall construe as calling solely for notification the provisions of the Act that purport to require congressional committee approval for the execution of a law" and "To the extent that provisions of the Act, such as section 558, purport to direct or burden the conduct of negotiations by the executive branch with foreign governments or other entities abroad, the executive branch shall construe them as advisory." Read an article by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe on this issue here.